When I was 14, I was excited to stay the night at a classmate’s slumber party. This sleepover was all the freshman girls were talking about at school for months and I got an invite because I let Julie, the birthday girl, look over my shoulder during social studies pop quizzes.

With my pillow and pajamas packed, I arrived at her door amped to enjoy my very first girls’ night out and show off my new Tamagotchi pet. We stuffed our faces with pizza and played rounds of Truth or Dare and Would You Rather and MASH (Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House).

We were girls. Innocent, silly, obsessed with Rose and Jack, and slightly bitchy at our meanest. Then my friend’s mother called the birthday girl into the kitchen. As I was brushing my teeth and readying for bed with my gal pals, Julie tapped me on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry but my mom doesn’t get it,” she started. “She said only girls can sleepover.”

“I totally get it,” I said with my best smile because it wasn’t my party and I couldn’t cry if I wanted to.

It was my first reminder as a trans girl that just when I think I’m having fun being me, me isn’t always understood. I could be called out because of my genitals, made to feel less than because of our society’s limited perspective on gender and told to leave a friend’s party because of the separation we’ve built around gender identity, gender expression and its blurriness with sexual orientation. It was as if the mere presence of my tucked weewee under my Keroppi PJs was a danger to the other girls around me.

This is what I was reminded of when I saw 14-year-old Girl Scout “Taylor” urging a boycott of Girl Scouts Cookies on YouTube because the organization is inclusive of transgender girls. Taylor, who read from a script most likely created by angry and misguided adults from HonestGirlScouts.com, claims safety as an issue, cites bathroom-use hysteria and discomfort in regards to sleepover arrangements. She confuses sexual orientation with gender identity throughout her video and goes as far as misgendering transgender girls as “transgender boys.”

One of HonestGirlScouts.com many false messages

Michelle Tompkins, a national Girl Scouts spokeswoman, told the Washington Post that the organization “prided itself on being an inclusive organization serving girls from all walks of life.”

As for Taylor, I’m not here to attack her as she is a person in development – just like me. I learn new things everyday about new people everyday. I’m assuming that young Taylor, a mere 14 years old, has not crossed paths with a transgender person, and I’m assuming not a transgender girl, like 7-year-old Bobby Montoya or 11-year-old Jazz or 14-year-old Nicole Maines.

I’m positive that if she was educated on the matter, just like most people who vehemently want to strip us of our personhood, that Taylor would think a bit different. But I know Taylor isn’t the problem. It’s not about bashing or attacking or villainizing her. She isn’t the villain; ignorance and intolerance is. And what scares most people, what makes LGBT people and their allies react so strongly and emotionally to a young girl spouting such an intolerant and incorrect message is the fact that we all know, deep down, that many people feel exactly the way Taylor feels about transgender people.

Many have asked why I shared this video because all it does is promote the “controversy” angle from the conservative group pushing this message forward. I argue that it’s too big and too incorrect to ignore. It’s moments like these where we must do the uncomfortable and reach out and Tweet and put the writing on our Facebook walls to show support for Girl Scouts of the USA which has taken a stand to support girls from all walks of life.

And it’s also a chance to share our stories and be vocal about our journeys because it is only in showing ourselves fully that we get people who may not understand us to actually see us – not as the concept transgender, but as people. People who just so happen to be transgender and love sleepovers and Samoas.

20 Comments

I am a closted Transgender girl!!!. I think it is awesome that there are actuelly parents out there who are aware and accepting of the true gender of their child and love them like any other child. I make the statment TRUE GENDER, because it is a fact that these individuals are of the expressed gender it is not a mental state, delusion, act, or even a sign of sexual abuse. Research has been done stating that the xx and xy standard that we put on people was not tolltaly corect. Just like the fact that the Earth is not the center of the solar system; we have found that scientest were gravely mistaken on the limited understanding of gender. Orginaly catagorizing just CIS Male or Female, we have discoved that human idenity and gender expression goes far beyond that. Our society’s gender status quo has gone to extremes to hinder the progression of Idenity. Getting back to the orignal point why should a little girl have to suffer at being humiliated by our limited understanding of gender. All she wants to do is sale some Cookies and be accepted for who she is, Darn why are people so harsh. I would love to come out about being Transgender to my parents but my Father is in the military and I’ve always had to fallow in his molding. I always Have to be the masculin Son I could never be, even though from the time I could remember I saw myself as a girl. How do we come out when society builds these walls to keep us from reaching the acceptance of our real selves.

Thank you Janet and ALL of the others who have read and thought about not only the original post but the responses. Through knowledge, understanding comes eradicating the fear and ignorance which encumbers so very many regarding those of us who just happen to be transsexual, myself included.

As a 66 y/o woman I am so very blessed to now be able to live my truth openly and honestly. It is my goal to help change the world by being VISIBLE in my community, to allow people to get to know me through volunteering, to allow people to see first hand, up close and personal, that while I have significant history presenting as a man, I can still think, reason, contribute to my community to make it a better place for EVERYONE.

Is not Martin Luther King not smiling as he observes this struggle today?

Okay this is directed at Mais, i completely understand what you are talking about but that don’t mean i have to agree 100% with it. As a rather young child i knew my gender identity and just wanted to be one of the girls. This was especially hard during high school to keep a guise of someone i was not; it drove me insane and yes there where even those dreaded thoughts of suicide. The point i am trying to make is that as a trans-women all i want is to been seen and treated as a women. I would have loved to have been apart of an all girls sleepover and just be a girl for once with no fear of what others would say or do and to be told to leave because i was born male because i might take advantage of the other girls. Well, it would kill me. All we do is seek acceptance, to be normal, or at least I do. So please think not only on terms of sexuality and gender identity cause we are more than that; we are people to and gender doesn’t define who we are but rather completes who we are.

as a parent of a queer child, i worried for her at slumber parties lest one of her friends let her orientation slip to their parents & then we’d have had to deal with their ignorance & intolerance when it was already hard enough for her to develop & maintain friendships with people who knew & accepted her. i can only imagine the double worry trans parents face letting their child out into a world full of this kind of ignorance & intolerance. ignorance is NOT bliss. it is a powerfully destructive force in the lives of all children.

Hi Janet,
I get the mother of the birthday girl. Having only girls, I am super protective and overly paranoid. It may not be intolerance, it may simply be a mother’s natural instinct talking. I have rules in my home too as I’m sure you did. I could never forgive myself if anything ever happened to them in the name of being tolerant. And that’s my worst case scenario. Exposing a child to possible molestation in my own home????? My own uncle molested me at 9 so I’m not about to let someone in who may or may not have an agenda. Thanks but I’d rather be labeled an intolerant bigot than have them experience a fraction of what I went through.

Thanks for commenting and sharing such a personal part of your own history. I’m sorry that happened to you. But this is where awareness about people’s differences comes in, which is exactly what I’m writing about. There’s a difference between sexual orientation (who you sleep with) and gender identity (and who you are on a soul level) – two completely different concepts.

My gender expression and identity has nothing to do with molestation. And there’s no link between me having been a trans teenager to having any sort of intent to sleep with or “molest” my classmates. I respect your maternal instinct to protect your daughters but that sort of thinking (to basically imply that a trans child will sexually abuse another child) is dangerous.

Let me clarify, a child born as a boy, who believes they at a girl, is still biologically a boy. If I have a sleepover for only girls, it is because the image of a penis at a slumber party doesn’t go down well with ME. Given the age teens begin to have sex, urges etc., I would not have a biological boy in my house. Molestation is a term I reserve for adults with intentions and acts on children. I have no way of determining if your mental state as girl will not be overridden by possible physical urges. I have no issue with life choices, should my children tell me they want to be boys I would support them but I would also go to extra lengths to ensure that they know the realities and are ready to face them. Same as with everything, sex and potential consequences, grades and future careers, effects of decisions they make….. I try to cover it all. Either I scar them for life or they are well prepared for anything. I’m sorry you felt that way when you were 14, I’m trying to show you what mothers like myself think of.

Mais: While I respect you wanting your children to be safe (by all means safety is definitely a number one concern to parents), I want to clarify several things. Most young trans girls in their early teens who are trans, in a financially stable household, and have supportive parents are on hormone blockers (blocking testosterone) and then hormones (hormones are usually started at 16, sometimes earlier, but that’s rare). Blockers basically keep male puberty from ever happening, and along with this most trans people (it depends on the person) experience some level of body and genital dysphoria that makes it enough of a problem to touch that area, let alone using it.

I quote, “. Same as with everything, sex and potential consequences, grades and future careers, effects of decisions they make….. I try to cover it all.”

While I commend you for attempting to be the perfect mother by covering every angle, there also happens to be an angle you are missing. If your daughter has made a friend, no matter whether she is trans or not, she has accepted this girl for who she is. You should therefore trust your daughter’s judgement and allow her to be happy.

I can remember when I was a young girl, I was not allowed over at a slumber party because the mother believed that there was something developmentally wrong with me and I would cause trouble at her house. There was nothing wrong with me except that it took me longer to gather together sentences in my head before I spoke. But she ended up breaking up my childhood friendship because she tried to “cover all the bases” instead of giving me a chance to prove that I would be careful in her home. This may be a different situation but I know that many parents have misgivings about the children who come into their home, and some times they refuse to see how their own child might react. This girl started to believe I was mentally handicapped and then proceeded to call me “retarded” and an “idiot” all over the playground. She emulated the opinion of her mother even though not two weeks earlier did she believe I was like everyone else.

I know you want to protect your child but if you go through life always feeling the need to “cover all the bases” you will almost always miss one. Instead, survey the child in question yourself. Survey how your child interacts with them. You may find yourself feeling differently. You may also influence your child to be the great person you have always wanted them to be.

It’s an interview I did with the national “Sunrise” breakfast program on Channel 7 in Australia recently, in regards to Transkids, identification & sexuality, plus Chaz Bono’s documentary.

I can tell you from experience that a Trans-girl isn’t a threat at a slumber-party or any other girl-related event, as even the thought of touching their penis in order to pee can traumatise them a lot. It certainly did with me, plus every other Trans-person I’ve met who identified as Trans & transitioned early. That in itself makes sex a non-existant possibility, as you won’t see a kid that has identified at that age want to do anything that makes them appear male, which in turn scares the hell out of them.

Also there’s a lot of “Junk Science” around saying that Trans people are molestors etc, even at an early age. We’re not, and if you get to know & support a Trans-girl, you’ll see just how girly we are by nature when we have the chance to just be ourselves. Excluding a Trans-kid can only cause harm in the long term, both psychologically and to friendships/relationships.

Fear is based in ignorance, and the cure for ignorance is knowledge, not condemnation. Sex and gender are different. We have those two different words for two very distinct concepts. When we talk gender, we use “girl/woman” and “boy/man”. When we talk biology, we use “male” and “female” (and “intersex”, but that’s another thread). That helps us understand that one can be both “girl” and “male” simultaneously. And then there’s the whole issue of orientation, where we use “gay”, “straight”, “bi”. So the issue of uncontrollable urges has a lot of hurdles to overcome; ie, this girl would have to also be lesbian or bisexual (and something of a predator) for sexual activity to have occurred at the sleepover.

I’m sorry, but how uninformed are you?
I am 35, the man I used to call my father, is now called Kimberley. She was born a woman, she is a woman, she raised me as a man because that is what society expected of her. She grew up as a boy, got married as a man, and lived that way until shit hit the wall, and it was either death, or start being true to who she is.
She did not abuse me, she did not abuse my brother, any of my many cousins. She was a soccer coach, a boy scout leader, she played shinny with the local kids.
I happily leave my daughter with Kim for babysitting duties, and God forbid SLEEPOVERS! Yep, Kim wipes her bum, and helps get her dressed. I trust Kim more than my brothers cisgendered girlfriend. Go figure.
Being trans doesn’t make you a sexual deviant. Being a sick, depraved person makes you abuse children, not being Transgender.
Please do some reading, please inform yourself, please stop being so close minded.

As someone who experienced sexual abuse as a child I can definitely understand the concept and urges of a parent to protect their child from that exact same thing. As a matter of fact I personally would not simply call it a concept or urge as much as I would call it a requirement of parenthood to protect your child from such events as molestation at all moments it is possible to do so.

That being said – I hope that you will educate yourself that the best way to do that is not to find out the gender (whether by birth or identity) of those around your child but rather to know who those children associated with your child’s parents are. It is the parents and other adults that one needs to be concerned with. Who are they, what do they teach their children, who do they allow their children around etc.? Who the parents of children around your child are is what is most likely to govern the behavior of those children not some alleged uncontrollable urge relating to the hormones of their gender. It is what a child is taught and what a child experiences that tends to govern how that child will act in their daily lives.

The gender of a child nor the gender identity of a child has nothing to do with whether or not that child is or will be a sexual predator. To believe so is not a healthy position on a psychological level. To teach “gender fear” as if every male in society is a danger to girls is something that risks much worse a psychological trauma in a young girl’s life than tolerance and equality does. Any parent should have complete freedom to deny who does and doesn’t come to their home overnight or otherwise, but a parent who does such things with the assumption that all boys are bad is doing it based on baggage within his/her own psyche rather than reality. The mere possession of a penis does not a sexual predator make, any more than the mere possession of a vagina makes one a victim and to teach such things (whether directly or through living by example as you have done here on this post) is to do a disservice to society.

I recommend that you both get some additional assistance with regard to your past so as to not operate in your present using that as a basis for your perception of reality and I also recommend that you become more educated with regard to gender identity and gender in general and all that is included in it. You did not mention whether or not any of your children were boys (but did mention there were girls), but I pray that until you are able to recognize that boys are not all predators regardless of their gender identity you do not have any significant responsibility for one. I don’t mean that as an insult or a dig at you I sincerely mean that from a place of concern for children and adults everywhere who are operating in the most sincere part of their heart who may suffer the effects of your view with regard to those birthed into the world possessing a penis. If you are not saying that all boys are predators and all girls are victims or potential victims then the only other option for one to glean from your statement would be that you believe all transgender girls who are birthed originally as boys are predators and interested merely in deflowering young girls whom they come across.

As a female & lesbian by birth – I can say that with regard to sexual activity between your child and their friends to assume that sexual urges only happen between boys by birth and females by birth is a mistake. If you aren’t sure what I mean I’d be happy to give you example of some of the fun activities that happened at many of the teen girls by birth only slumber parties I attended growing up. Girls will be girls just as boys will be boys and very little of it is predatory. Being educated on the reality that not all things in life are exactly like your tainted past or mine is a significant need with regard to assisting you in the adjustment of your view to include for reality rather than past baggage.

Coming in a little late on this discussion, but my heart broke a little for Janet with this story. I was an ignored or maligned kid too; for my own reasons. I was never invited to those slumber parties. Even the “All girls in the freshman class” kind of parties were not extended to me because, for one thing, I’ve always been outspoken and liberal, even as a young kid. So I spent lots of nights crying over not being accepted. I can only imagine coming so close to acceptance and then being rejected. And I can just picture Janet being brave and trying hard not to show how much that rejection hurt. As careful as parents need to be with their children’s influences, they also need to be careful with the other kids in the community and make certain that their choices are not injuring them as well. Kids are precious. Hell, people are precious. We MUST treat each other with care, love, and overall respect. I won’t lie, if I thought there was a boy at my kid’s slumber party, I probably wouldn’t get a lot of sleep, worrying that my kid might be subjected to something that I didn’t want her to be. But a girl who is trans isn’t a boy, any more than I am. And frankly, the closest thing to sexual activity I ever came as a kid was at an all-girl (where I believe all the girls were cis-girls)slumber party (at age nine) where one of the other girls wanted to mime sex with the rest of us(nothing remotely penetrative). It was bizarre and whatever, but I don’t consider myself having been sexually traumatized. The point is, no boys (or even girls who are trans) were involved or necessary for sexual activity to occur.

Thank you Janet for approaching this with openess and love. Your sleepover story made me choke up and I’m sorry your 14 year old self had to go through that hurt. There are no accidents in life — what you have lived and how you live now — it’s fate manifested. Sharing your memories will change minds and increase the love in the universe. It’s like the title of Joan Didion’s anthology We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live. Who are we if we can’t tell our truths?

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